I've been drinking, I've been drinking...

I have decided to stop drinking. I stopped, in fact, on October 1st, roughly a month ago. I am 41 years old and I've been drinking alcohol for half my life and I have finally realized that it is doing me in. Not in a melodramatic Days of Wine and Roses type way, or in an Alcoholic Anonymous way, but in a straight up, drinking alcohol doesn't make logical sense and it never really has epiphany type way in which I have questioned all the reasons why I do it and none of them made sense. Why?

I am tired of hangovers and wasting time feeling physically bad and emotionally depressed. But, I never drank more than three glasses of wine, which is actually a lot of alcohol, but an amount that most people wouldn't bat an eye at. And still, alcohol is an addictive drug--how does one "just have one glass," which is the recommended amount for women per day. That's bullshit--who has just one glass? I am tired of depending on wine as a crutch in the same way I did for cigarettes, which I also quit, fifteen years ago. Everybody drinks; wine is water these days. But it causes more problems than it purports to solve. It doesn't really relax you, you just think it does. Also, if you drink regularly, the reason why you feel relaxed when you take a drink is because of withdrawal--having a drink is a mild form of hair of the dog that bit you.

I read a great book, Kick the Drink Easily by Jason Vale and he basically uses cognitive behavioral principles to allow you to see the error in your thinking about drinking. And it is really powerful. I haven't drunk any alcohol in a month and I really want to make it a permanent thing.

I realize that my entire adulthood has been accompanied by drinking--the stories of my drunk, absent father as genetic cautionary tale to bar hopping in college and throughout my twenties, to evenings at home with culturally acceptable bottles and bottles of "antioxident rich" red wine. It's good for you!

I am debunking this theory and musing out loud about my new life. I want to start writing here as a way to log in about not drinking but also, to understand the past as it relates to my present and future, without alcohol. I don't want to mystify or romanticize alcohol, because I think it is part of the problem, but I do want to sort it all out. I do think there is a post-AA sober revolution happening right now that has a lot to do with other mind/body movements that have become more mainstream in recent years. Hopefully, I can use this space to work it all out fruitfully...